Digital or Analog audio source?

[quixand]

My father has a huge collection of records. A three disc Sholay LP. Hadn't seen Sholay till then but I knew the dialogues listening to the records. Kid stuff you know? Too many movies in their entirety on records. Lots of Mehdi Hassan, Lata and Rafi songs. Quite a few 70s, 80s pop records. Very difficult for me to describe the sound produced from those records, dense? saturated?

 

[greenhorn]

If i had to choose between digital and analog, I'd choose Digital every time. A decently priced Digital source will blow away most low to mid end analog sources every time - in terms of quality and convenience. On the other hand, there are some who say that even the best digital sources can not come anywhere close to the the best analog. That is a discussion that neither I nor my wallet are interested in getting into.

Why am I going back into analog?
1. It's a fun break to go into the great outdoors of music
It's fun to touch and feel music, It's a more personal experience, to read the sleeve notes, and see the wheels turning, and watch music being made, instead of see it coming from a black box.

this is one of my setups. I just find it just so much fun to sit and watch. Plus it is amazing to listen to tapes that you used to listen to as a kid, and think, wow, they're not that bad compared to the CD after all.

2. Some of the music I have can't be had in Digital
http://www.hifivision.com/music/502...i-orchestra-love-blue-paul-mauriat-cover.html
this is a tape that I have, and simply adore. I'm still yet to find a digital version of it. For some reason, (probably me or my equipment) the digital versions end up sounding worse, so I end up going back to the analog versions.

3. Digital versions of a lot of new music are compressed to death.
For a lot of music, it is about finding an uncompressed version of the track. Most of the stuff you get in digital have already been 'remastered'. I realized this when I was listening to a recording of a Manhattan's LP made on the Legendary Maxell UD XL II CrO2 tape from an LP. Bear in mind that even though this is an audiophile tape, it is still limited to 60dB or so dynamic range, and "shining star" just blew me away. I could not believe a tape could sound so good. I decided to download the digital version, and even the lossless version sounds incredibly bland and compressed. All my friends who have listened to that tape agree that it sounds better than the digital version.

 

[m-jeri]

I guess you were feeling romantic to Analog when you were typing that. .

Coming to the post. I wanted to ask you 2 things.

1. You used the word "convenience". So far I see, for all the merits analog provides, they are cumbersome to maintain. Takes too much space. I don't know if they consume more power either. I feel they "may". Is it really worth it?.

Consider the content for Digital as uncompressed formats and source as a normal media player like the Fiio X3 or X5. And medium as a sub 100$ IEM or Headphone like the AT M50.

Look at the advantages the digital setup can provide you. Tonnes of songs, long battery life, Portable etc.

2. This is regarding point 2.

Say that you have loss-less or uncompressed digital music of your preference available to you. Which one will you prefer? Analog or Digital? Consider there are things like the PONO music coming up or HDTracks.

Note: I cannot wrap my head around your point 1 though. That's more of your love for DIY I say. Isn't both technically "electronic" devices? Whats so outdoorsy about it? You can tinker with both. 30 years from now, maybe in a forum someone may talk about Digital like that.

 

[greenhorn]

1. It's not a rational or an objective choice. It's more on the emotional/subjective camp. Digital is like a perfect wife, analog is more of a mistress. If i had to choose one, I'd choose the wife , but the world lets you have a wonderful variety of stuff. There should be absolutely no reason I should have a mistress if i have a perfect wife. But still....

2. Analog and digital compression are two different beasts. You can have music which is digitally uncompressed, but still have analog compression.

take for example these two youtube links

the first is a proper, high fidelity record, the second is a compressed, easy listening 'muzak' CD rip Both are on youtube, so am assuming must have undergone some sort of digital compression. I'm assuming you know how digital compression make music sound bad, and the difference between them is not due to digital compression - it is analog compression which makes the quiet parts louder, and the loud parts quieter, and robs the music of any impact or liveliness.

If i had access to uncompressed (analog) sources, then that would be one less reason to stick to analog.

In fact, I don't buy newer LP's - I listened to a brand new norah jones LP, and it sounded just as dead as the CD version. any 'remastered' LP tends to be just as bad.

 

[m-jeri]

uncompressed (analog) sources

Did you mean Digital?

Hmm. I may not know the nitty gritty of A2D conversion. But yes there will be a loss. Agreed. Again, I come back to my original question. . Is it that much of a drop to shun Digital world?.

And regarding PONO. Do you think that will be a game changer? They are talking it will be as close to the original sound.

 

[greenhorn]

Did you mean Digital?

Hmm. I may not know the nitty gritty of A2D conversion. But yes there will be a loss. Agreed. Again, I come back to my original question. . Is it that much of a drop to shun Digital world?.

And regarding PONO. Do you think that will be a game changer? They are talking it will be as close to the original sound.

Dude, I keep talking about Analog compression vs Digital compression, and you keep going on about analog source vs digital source. I feel like an agnostic weighing in on a theist vs atheist fight.

I am indifferent to analog vs digital sources. What I hate is analog compression of music by recording studios. What I want is a version of the recording that has not undergone too much analog compression - if that's there, I don't care what format it is in, LP, tape, FLAC, or even a 192 kbps mp3.

No I will never shun the digital world. It is too convenient, and it will remain my primary means of listening to music.

I do not have much faith in pono. Mainly because even if you get digitally uncompressed sources, the studio masters have already been mutilated by analog compression. Unless they go dig out the original studio masters, which I doubt they will bother.

 

[m-jeri]

Hmm. My mistake not being clear enough with my words/nomenclature.

The reason why I choose to cite PONO and HDTracks were due to you saying Digital compression sucks. and especially PONO says it will avoid it. To a degree.

Yes. I just call them Analog & Digital. . Compressed or uncompressed. Perhaps I shouldn't.

 

[greenhorn]

due to you saying Digital compression sucks.

um, I didn't say that. Personally I'm perfectly fine with anything above 128kbps.

Yes. I just call them Analog & Digital. . Compressed or uncompressed. Perhaps I shouldn't.

Analog compression ruins sound in ways very different to digital compression. They are very different things. for example, if you digitally compress an image, it gets blocky and artefacted. if you apply the equivalent of analog compression to an image, you are going to get a picture with washed out colours and contrast - the opposite of HDR.

Digital compression you are talking about is applied to the digital source. This is trivial to bypass. All you need to do is buy the CD or download a flac.

Analog compression is applied at the studio during mastering. To avoid that, you need to find the original master recordings, or recordings as close to them as possible - not that easy. This leads one on the path of finding older versions of music, especially records and tapes. The medium is just a means, not an end.

 

[booo]

There are two things in the digital music/media. lossless compression and lossy. lossless compression like FLAC doesnt lose a single bit even though it compresses the file. on the otherhand mp3 loses data to decrease the file size.

but it really depends on the source you are compressing from. you can do a lot of stuff to the music to sound better or bad using filters. like switching the channels, converting 5.1 to 2.0, highpass lowpass filtering etc... even a flac would sound bad if there are any filters applied before compressing. to me a 320kbps or a flac is just about right.